Cost of a Secret

Review Replies: Phil, yeah, it was definitely awkward. But they'll interact more now. Thanks for reading. MustangsHavoc, thanks. Yeah, I'm having fun with Ed the cat. Kuragari, thanks. This is the fight, more or less, but We're dealing with a much more mature Ed and he's going to show it.

Ed looked from Roy to the boy. He managed a smile for the boy who looked so much like his former lover. While the boy was looking up at him innocently from his brown eyes, Roy looked almost daring, as though he expected Ed to make a scene. The younger man’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at his former lover—he tried to ignore the stinging in his chest at mentally referring to Roy as that. He looked back at the boy and forced his expression to soften as he stepped nearer the kid.

“Hey,” he said as he crouched down to bring himself to the boy’s level. “I’m Edward Elric.”

The boy smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Liam Tyler.”

Ed took the boy’s hand and shook it. He managed a smile on his face, even as he wanted to smack the boy’s father. Over and over, he repeated in his head that it wasn’t the boy’s fault. He just had a bastard for a dad—and strangely enough, Ed didn’t have a problem thinking of Roy as one.

“Nice to meet you.” Ed stood back up and looked Roy in the eyes—regardless of the height difference between his own and the older man’s. “I need to talk to you.”

To his surprise, the cat that had been in the boy’s arms was now sniffing Ed’s legs and then rubbing against them.

“Ed likes you, Ed,” Liam said and then laughed quietly. “Sorry. But, it’s funny you’re both Eds.”

“Well, your Ed probably remembers this Ed,” Roy said. Ed tried to ignore that he had gone from “my Ed” to “this Ed,” but it stung all the same. “After all, it was his brother Al who saved your cat, and Ed made his bed.”

He gestured to an open box on the floor and it was all the young man could do not to gape at it. This was the cat from all those years ago? Roy had somehow saved it?

That didn’t change how angry Ed still was at the man, but it was a bit of information to log away, and to tell Al. His brother had felt guilty for not finding the cat a home for ages.

“This isn’t really the time, Ed,” Roy said, going immediately into condescending Colonel mode. Ed hadn’t seen that side of Roy in a while, and it only reminded him why it used to piss him off so much.

“Well, since I’m packing up my stuff, there isn’t going to really be another time.”

“Don’t worry about it, Chief,” Havoc said as he walked up and grinned so casually that Ed envied his ability to do it despite the tension in the air. Even the innocent and oblivious boy had stopped smiling. “I’ll watch over Liam for a bit. Help him get some things unpacked. You talk to the boss.” He looked down at Liam. “Don’t know if you remember me. You were still pretty little, but I talk to you on the phone when you call your dad once in a while. I’m Jean Havoc.”

The boy smiled and nodded. “I remember.”

“Jean,” Roy said. “What are you doing here?”

“The boss is moving in with me,” Havoc said, smile still on his face. “Thought I could at least help him pack up.”

“If Al comes up, tell him to get reacquainted with the cat. Apparently the bas—Roy took him in after all.”

Roy looked between them both, looking confused, apparently, at the mention of Al more than anything. “Come on.” He grabbed Roy’s arm with his automail, squeezing it a bit too tight for the other man’s comfort, not tight enough for his own satisfaction.

********

Roy winced at the feeling of the automail on his arm. Ed had been far more composed than he’d expected he would, but the once rebellious teen had become a man while Roy had watched the change happening in him. It really shouldn’t have been so surprising that Ed had become an adult finally. An adult who was looking at him with a fury and hurt in his eyes that Roy hadn’t really counted on.

Ed pulled him into the study, and Roy couldn’t help but notice how many things were gone now. It struck him at that moment how much he’d incorporated his lover into his life, every aspect of it.

Roy was pulled out of his thoughts by the latch shutting on the study door. He turned abruptly and looked over at Ed.

“You son of a bitch,” Ed hissed, his voice low and cold. It almost sent shudders through the older man’s spine. The words were not unexpected, but the way it was said was.

“Ed,” Roy said, defensively, “I do not have time for this.”

“Too damned bad,” Ed said, poking him in the chest with the index finger of his automail. It hurt, but Roy tried not to show it. “You had a kid? And you kept that from me?”

“I couldn’t very well tell you when you were just a kid yourself,” Roy said. “Riza was the only one who knew about Liam until he was three. By then you were fifteen and still bucking my authority so much—”

“Damn it, Roy, I didn’t say I wanted to know from the very beginning. But I thought I’d earned your trust when we fought against the rebels near the Ishballan territories. And if not then, then what about when we started seeing one another or when I moved in?” Ed shook his head. “I thought… I thought you trusted me more than that.”

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Ed was supposed to be mad, go away so that Roy didn’t have to face him like this, not that he really thought he would. Ed looked far more hurt than Roy had expected.

“I didn’t think you could understand,” Roy said.

“At some point you got a woman pregnant, there was a baby, and it is now Liam.” Ed looked at him. “What couldn’t I understand about that? I don’t give a damn about it. I’m more pissed about the fact that you couldn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me with something as important as this.”

Again, a far more mature response than Roy had expected, and he simply couldn’t meet the young man’s eyes any longer. He had known Ed all these years, been sleeping beside him for nearly one of them, and he was only now realizing just how adult his lover was.

“At least I know who the bed is for,” Ed said. “I thought you expected me to take it while you took our… the old one.”

“I expected you to be gone by the time I got back,” Roy admitted.

Ed huffed and went for the door to the study. “Well, you came five minutes too early.” He turned the handle. “Goodbye Roy.”

********

Ed had managed the faintest smile to Liam because he knew it wasn’t the boy’s fault. No matter how easy it would have been to simply blame the seven-year-old for the crimes of his father, it just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

Al had taken the last of Ed’s boxes to the car and Havoc surprised Ed the most by putting a comforting arm around him. When they got to the man’s car—a beat-up old clunker, but drivable—he even gave Ed the tiniest squeeze to his shoulders. It was reassuring, when a lot of things weren’t, that he had Havoc as a friend. Really, he had quite a few at the office, guessing by the number of offers of places to stay he’d received and the offers to cook for him.

He got into the older man’s car and sat in the passenger seat. He barely noticed as Al climbed inside behind him. He knew Al said something to him, something about feeling sorry for him, but Ed didn’t really hear it, only nodded when he heard the words followed by the feeling of his brother’s flesh and blood hand patting his shoulder.

********

Roy put on a cheerful smile for his son as he went to show the boy his new bedroom. “And if you’d like, we can go out tonight and get you paint, wallpaper, new toys, anything you want.”

“Okay,” Liam said, looking so happy, it nearly killed Roy that he hadn’t done this before. He could have, the last year or so, had Liam around more often. Maybe if he had, his son wouldn’t have suffered so much. He and Ed probably could have gotten along, if Ed would have forgiven Roy not telling him about Liam when they were starting their friendship. Above all else, though, he could have spared Liam the pain and fear he saw in the boy’s eyes when he thought no one was looking.

“Dad?” Liam asked, putting a hand on Roy’s arm. “Are you okay?”

Roy blinked a bit too much as his eyes stung. He managed a smile. “I’m fine, Liam. Let’s get you settled into your brand new room.”

Liam looked at him warily, brown eyes far too knowing for a boy of his age. A little orange puff of fur was already making its rounds through the house, trying to lay claim to its new home. Speaking of claim, Roy realized belatedly that the cat would need a litter box. “Would you like to see a little alchemy?” he asked his son.

The boy’s eyes had a wary air to them that made the state alchemist very angry at his one-time lover. Rather than voice or show his concern, Roy again put on a smile and put his arm around his son. “Ed is going to need a litter box.”

Roy led Liam out into the back yard, asking him to gather up some materials while he dug some clay and dirt from the yard. Having to do landscaping later was far better than having a male cat urinating all through his home now and for ages after because it would find the scent.

Liam looked far more at ease than he had in a while, and Roy was grateful he could at least offer the distraction. He hated that the boy so eagerly trying to help him now would, in just a few short hours, have to try to explain to a judge exactly what his mother had done to him.

But when he watched his son who normally absorbed anything involving alchemy like a sponge flinch at the act of the transmutation and automatically grab at his back in phantom pain, Roy was reminded of how necessary it was.

He kept a calm expression on his face as he gathered Ed the Cat’s new litter box and backyard-clay litter to take into the house. “Think you can convince him to use this?”

“Ed listens to me. He’ll use it, but… maybe I should carry it in. I don’t think he likes you much yet.”

Roy handed the box to his son and opened the back door for him as he very carefully and slowly walked the heavy clay-filled box into the house and sat it on the downstairs bathroom floor.

“Ed!” Liam said. Almost immediately, Roy heard the sound of the cat bounding down the stairs and running to Liam. The orange-furred creature took a wide berth when he saw Roy, but eagerly sniffed out his new litter box. A pair of yellow-green eyes glared at him, insisting that he go the hell out of the room and let it use its litter box in peace. It was somewhat less effective, as the cat had a few feathers sticking out of its fur. Roy wondered why two Eds now had been sporting the look.

Roy exited the room, a little curious as he saw feathers tracing the path that the cat had taken. “I’ll be right back and see what Ed got into, okay, Liam? Why don’t you try putting some things out in your new room and thinking about what you’d like to do with it?” He smiled and followed the fluffy white trail up to his bedroom, knowing the Ed he was talking about was not likely the Ed that Liam thought.

Behind him, Liam went to the little bedroom that Havoc must have already shown him and disappeared inside as Roy walked to the end of the hall and saw that his bedroom was covered in down feathers. Yet, that wasn’t what he noticed. Looking around the room, he couldn’t help but see how empty it felt. The bed that he’d once hogged eagerly, never used to sleep with anyone seemed to huge, too big for one person.

He had known Ed would get angry and hurt, and he would probably leave. Roy just hadn’t expected there would be such a large part of him that would hope Ed wouldn’t go and that he could be there to support Roy now when he needed it most.